I blinked, remembering the famous quote from one of the earliest computer role-playing games, written and played by thousands long before I was even born—Zork. The iconic quote accompanied a huge walled maze that stretched out in front of me as far as the eye could see in every direction. I recognized the place from a zone in Dragon Epoch—an impossibly infuriating zone which featured a constantly shifting maze full of riddles and puzzles that needed to be solved. In that zone, there were no monsters to fight and defeat. The enemy was the mind itself.
The words formed again, scrolling across my screen, each sentence appearing when I took another turn down the impossible maze. My gut twisting with frustration when those turns led to the inevitable dead ends.
Every turn I took, every choice I made was the wrong one. All I knew was that I wanted you back. I had to have you back, but everything I did pushed you further away. It was as disorienting as this trip though the impossible maze.
I finally judged that I needed to stop moving because no matter where I turned, the maze became more and more bewildering, closing in on me and making me dizzy.
Can you find your way out? What if the person you loved most in the world was at the end of the maze and you had no idea which way to turn?
Yes, I was angry, resentful. Even after I found out everything. And because you were sick, that anger got buried deep inside and turned into guilt. You were sick and I had no right to be angry with you.
I sat back, sucking in a sob. I didn’t like where this was leading. I put my face in my hands and read through cracked fingers, as if watching a horror movie alone in an empty house on a dark night.
The maze faded away and instead, a vapor-like vision formed in front of me. It was hard to see through the haze, but there were clouds. And the words formed again.
That guilt became excuses. I know you wanted us to go back to the way things had been. I know you were as clueless about how to do that as I was. So my anger and resentment and guilt came out as excuses—excuses to keep you at a distance.
The vision of puffy white clouds solidified and words formed across them. “I’m tired.”
Then they darkened into storm clouds accompanied by the words, “I’m worried about her.”
Then rain started to pour down from them in torrents. “We need to go slow, wait until she is healthy.”
Then lightning struck, over and over again, blinding me. “I’m so angry at her and I hate myself for it because she is sick.”
And then, the visions clearing, I stood in a graveyard. I recognized this place—a point of respawn—one of the first of many graveyards in DE, where your ghost goes after you are killed in the game. And the words, the most heart-wrenching of all: “What if she dies?”
But these were illusions I used to hide the real issue. The one I never even realized I had. The most difficult to discover and the most painful to endure…
Suddenly I was back in the original, beautiful mountainscape, standing on the banks of a rushing river that flowed past my feet. I toggled my view screen to look up in the sky. New words formed.
I wanted to be the man to protect you and comfort you…instead I was the man who had harmed you…
I buried my face in my hands, my vision blurring with tears, my throat stinging with them.
But words were scrolling on the screen again and I quickly blinked, afraid that I would miss them, not sure how I would see them again if I didn’t capture them now.
I know you wanted a different answer from me that day, when you asked me about how I felt about the baby. I couldn’t give it to you then. I still can’t give it to you. The only thing I could think about was the risk to you.
I do feel guilty about the lack of feelings because I know it’s something you really wanted. And I could only think of you.
But when I think about how close you came to choosing the baby’s life over your own, the fear of that moment chokes me. Because it was completely out of my control and I was utterly at your mercy. I hate, more than anything, to feel helpless, but in that moment, I was.
What would have happened if you had chosen to have the baby—and then you’d died? Could I have been anything but a resentful and bitter parent to that child?
I know you suffered, physically, emotionally. I know that for you it was a terrible, traumatic decision. But I’ll never be anything but glad you made the choice you did—and that makes me feel guilty, too.
And it makes me question and have doubts about our future. Because I wonder…will we ever be able to have joy that isn’t weighted down with loss and guilt and tears?
I toggled my mouse button to pause the playback of the game. Sitting back, I stared at that last bit of text, unable to breathe. Was Adam breaking up with me for good? I put a hand over my mouth to muffle the sobs but found I couldn’t. Mom rolled over in her bed and without looking up she muttered, “Everything okay?”